Shadowkiller (41 page)
Authors: Wendy Corsi Staub
“Go where?”
“Heaven.”
“Heaven?” Rollins echoes. “Ain't none of us goin' to heaven, brother. We all goin' straight toâ”
“Not Slow Boy,” Doobie cuts in, turning to look at Rollins.
Jerry can't see his face, but it must be a dirty look because Rollins quickly shuts his mouth and turns away.
“You . . . you're going straight to Heaven,” Doobie whispers, turning back to Jerry. “You can go now, if you want to.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“I told you. It's better than being stuck here for another fifty years, or longer. You can have cake there.”
Jerry's mouth waters at the thought of it.
He hasn't had cake in years. Ten years.
“But I . . . I can't fly a plane into aâ”
“You don't have to.” Doobie's voice is low. So low only Jerry can hear it. “There are other ways to get there, you know? There are easy ways to get yourself out of here, Jerry.”
Jerry
.
Not Slow Boy.
“I could help you,” Doobie says. “I'm your friend. You know that, don't you?”
Jerry swallows hard, suddenly feeling like he wants to cry. A friendâhe hasn't had a friend in a long time.
He thinks of Jamie . . .
No. Jamie wasn't your friend. Jamie was your sister, and she died when you were kids. She didn't come back to you all those years later, like you thought. That wasn't real.
“Jerry,” Doobie is saying, and Jerry blinks and looks up at him.
“What?”
“We'll talk about this later, okay? After the lights go out. I'll help you. Okay?”
Jerry doesn't even remember what they were talking about, but he doesn't want to tell Doobie that, so he says, “Okay.”
USA Today
and
New York Times
bestseller W
ENDY
C
ORSI
S
TAUB
is the award-winning author of more than seventy novels. She lives in the New York City suburbs with her husband of twenty years and their two children. Learn more about Wendy at www.wendycorsistaub.com.
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Praise for the work of
Finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award
“Solid gold suspense!”
Lee Child
“Wendy Corsi Staub is a master storyteller!”
New York Times
bestselling author Brenda Novak
“Each twist and turn is methodical, meant to build anxiety as she cleverly yanks the rug out from underneath.”
Suspense
Magazine
“Once Staub's brilliant characterizations and top-notch narrative skills grab hold, they don't let go.”
Publishers Weekly
(Starred Review)
“I couldn't put it down!”
Lisa Jackson (on
Live to Tell
)
“Wendy Corsi Staub is an author not to be missed.”
Bookreporter.com
“If you've never read this fantastic author, you're truly missing out on some of the greatest domestic suspense stories around.”
New Mystery Reader
Coming Soon
The Good Sister
 
 
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpts from
The Good Sister, Nightwatcher,
and
Sleepwalker
copyright © 2013, 2012 by Wendy Corsi Staub.
SHADOWKILLER
. Copyright © 2013 by Wendy Corsi Staub. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062070333
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062070326
FIRST EDITION
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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